# peppermint oil in meerschaum pipe help



## blackop555 (Aug 13, 2009)

My friend ended up dropping a drop of peppermint oil in my meerschaum pipe. I was not paying attention then she told me and i tryed to wipe it out the best i could. I then tryed a bowl and it tasted like nasty menthol. worse than that actually but it is so strong. i was wondering if teh pipe is ruined because of the absorbant quality of meerschaum. If there is a way to possibly get the taste back to normal or atleast get rid of most of it. Or is teh best way to keep smoking it and the taste will go away? Thanks


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## SmokinJohnny (Jan 21, 2009)

I've heard of boiling it in water followed by boiling in fat but you risk cracking it. But then maybe tobacco juice from continued smoking will kill it.


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## tlempke (Jun 3, 2009)

SmokinJohnny said:


> I've heard of boiling it in water followed by boiling in fat but you risk cracking it. But then maybe tobacco juice from continued smoking will kill it.


If you do boil the pipe, bring the water/fat temperature up very very slowly starting with cool water. That should prevent a crack as you will not be shocking the pipe with the drastic temperature change.


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## IKMeerschaum (Feb 8, 2007)

blackop555 said:


> My friend ended up dropping a drop of peppermint oil in my meerschaum pipe. I was not paying attention then she told me and i tryed to wipe it out the best i could. I then tryed a bowl and it tasted like nasty menthol. worse than that actually but it is so strong. i was wondering if teh pipe is ruined because of the absorbant quality of meerschaum. If there is a way to possibly get the taste back to normal or atleast get rid of most of it. Or is teh best way to keep smoking it and the taste will go away? Thanks


At this point, you really don't have anything to lose. I don't BELIEVE that you are going to be able to tolerate smoking it enough to get rid of the aromas. What you might want to do is to pack the pipe with salt similar to the pipe-sweetening treatment you'll find at The Professor's Pipe-Sweetening Treatment however DO NOT saturate it with alcohol. You will just want to add a FEW drops of alcohol.

Try this a few times and it should help draw out all the nasty from the peppermint oil. Unless you like smoking a modified menthol pipe....

Good luck!


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## blackop555 (Aug 13, 2009)

thank you all very much for your response. i will try the salt method first mostly because it is a little bit easier to do. if that does not work i will try boiling. the pipe would be great for someone who loves menthol but i cant stand it. The sad thing is that i was smoking it for a while and it has turned golden brown. thanks again


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## Mister Moo (Sep 8, 2005)

FWIW: peppermint oil is an oil and oils break down with soaps. I don't think you risk anything by giving the bowl a good swabbing with some paper towels and an unscented soap and warm water. 

Where's galaga when you need him? He's some kinda chemistry guy.


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## Mad Hatter (Apr 8, 2007)

If you have a place and you can set the pipe aside for a while a few weeks of fresh air or warm shed might do wonders as well


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## uvacom (Oct 29, 2008)

Did your friend do this on purpose or was it an accident? 

One thing that would probably work well is the activated charcoal method (basically fill the bowl with activated charcoal and heat for several hours) because that doesn't expose the bowl to any liquids which might harm it. But it MIGHT also be bad for the mortise insert and/or the beeswax finish so I'd do a little more research before I tried that if I were you. The meer itself wouldn't be hurt by it as long as it's heated/cooled slowly, they dry meerschaum in kilns after they're carved so as far as that goes it's safe.


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## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

uvacom said:


> Did your friend do this on purpose or was it an accident?


I assumed that if it was on purpose, the "r" in friend would have been removed...


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## tzaddi (Feb 24, 2007)

In my experience… I use pipe cleaners dipped in a liquor that I make with Everclear and spearmint that I grow to clean some of my pipes.

This is just for the stem and bowl. I don't use it on the outside of the pipe. Each of the mints has a bit of a different taste, but the spearmint effect dissipates with little after taste.


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## blackop555 (Aug 13, 2009)

on purpose just for it to be a surprise when i lit it up. she didnt know about the absorbtion of pipes she figured it could just be wiped. might hae been easier cleaned if it was not oil


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## jcats (Jul 29, 2008)

I usually wait for my meer pipe to cool down after smoking.

I will take the pipe to the wash basin, under the running water and clean the bowl with soft tooth brush. Rinse the whole pipe and dry it out in the sun.

Of course, they are fine ipe:


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## blackop555 (Aug 13, 2009)

I tried the bowling in water and then in fat. I did that a good 5 times in new water and then in new fat each time. All this did was remove the wax and turned the coloring gray. The next that i did was bake that sucker in the oven with those activated charcoal. After that it smelt just as strong peppermint. The next thing i have been doing since last night is the salt treatment. ill post back later to say how it went


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